VIRTUAL MEMORY PROTOCOL SEGMENTATION OFFLOADING

摘要

Methods and systems for a more efficient transmission of network traffic are provided. According to one embodiment, a user process of a host processor requests a network driver to store payload data within a system memory. The network driver stores (i) payload buffers each containing therein at least a subset of the payload data and (ii) buffer descriptors each containing therein information indicative of a starting address of a corresponding payload buffer within a user memory space. A network processor transmits onto a network the payload data within multiple transport layer protocol packets by (i) causing a network interface to retrieve the payload data from the payload buffers by performing direct virtual memory addressing of the user memory space using the buffer descriptors and information contained within a translation data structure stored within the system memory; and (ii) segmenting the payload data across the transport layer protocol packets.